The present invention relates to an automatic developing apparatus for silver halide photographic photosensitive material, and more specifically, to a compact automatic developing apparatus and to an automatic developing apparatus having a solid processing agent replenishment apparatus in a photosensitive material processing apparatus in which a dissolving operation is not necessary, resulting in greatly improved operability.
Silver halide color photographic photosensitive material (hereinafter, also called photosensitive material) is processed by developing, desalting, washing, and stabilizing processes after exposure. Monochrome silver halide photographic photosensitive material is developed and fixed after exposure.
Normally, the above-described processing is carried out in an automatic developing apparatus while the photosensitive material is successively and automatically conveyed through the above-described processes.
When the photosensitive material is processed by such an automatic developing apparatus, conventionally, a method, by which processing agents are replenished to maintain a constant chemical activity of processing solutions in the processing tanks, is widely adopted.
Specifically, a processing operation is carried out while a replenishing solution is timely supplied in the processing tank from a replenishment tank.
In this case, the replenishment solution itself, stored in the replenishment tank, is generally prepared in a different location. In mini-laboratories, the number of which has greatly increased recently, when the replenishment solution in the replenishment tank, usually placed quite close to the automatic developing apparatus, has been used up, a predetermined amount of the replenishment solution is normally prepared at a time. When the replenishment solution is prepared, the solid processing agent is manually dissolved, or automatically dissolved with a mixer.
Commonly, a processing agent for silver halide photographic photosensitive material (referred to as a photographic processing agent in this specification hereinafter) is put on the market in the form of powder or condensed liquid. When it is put into practical use, powder is manually dissolved in a predetermined amount of water in the case of powder, and in the case of a condensed liquid, a predetermined amount of water is added to the condensed liquid, and then the mixture is manually stirred and appropriately diluted. In this way, the replenishment solution is prepared.
When the replenishment solution is prepared in the manner described above, it takes time to dissolve the solid processing agent. While the preparation work is being carried out, the solid processing agent is usually not yet completely dissolved in the solution. Therefore, in order to prevent replenishment solution, the concentration of which varies greatly from a predetermined value, from being fed to the processing tank in the mini-laboratory, it is necessary to stop feeding the replenishment solution.
In general, continuous processing of photosensitive material is temporarily stopped, and after the replenishment solution has been prepared, the operation is re-started. For this reason, the efficiency of continuous processing of photosensitive material is greatly lowered.
From the viewpoint of protecting the natural environment, solidification of photographic processing agents have been developed recently. For example, solidified photographic processing agents are disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection Nos. 109042/1990, 109043/1990. 39379/1991, 39735/1991, 19655/1992 and 230748/1992.
However, in the case where the replenishment solution prepared from the above solid processing agents, the dissolution time of the solid processing agent is longer than the dissolution time of the liquid processing agent. Accordingly, the continuous processing operation is stopped for a long period of time, which greatly reduces the work efficiency. Therefore, it is desired to solve the above problems.
Recently, with the increased concern for our natural environment, it is required to decrease the amount of photographic processing waste solutions. As a part of technologies to meet the above requirement, technologies in which the stabilizer solution is fed to the fixer solution or bleach-fix solution in order to decrease the entire amount of waste solutions, have been proposed in Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection Nos. 14834/1983, 3448/1983, 235133/1985, and 212935/1988.
However, in all of these technologies, use of kits of liquid processing agents are premised. Liquid processing agent kits have the following disadvantages.
(1) Concentration of the solution can not exceed that corresponding to the solubility of the replenishment solution (because crystals are crystalized when the concentration exceeds the solubility), and therefore rapid processing and small amount of replenishment are limited.
(2) Dissolving and mixing of the replenishment solution is complicated and troublesome.
(3) It is relatively dangerous to transport and handle liquid processing agents.
(4) (Complete) Automation of replenishment of the condensed solution kits is difficult for manual dissolving operations.
(5) Because many replenishment tanks are provided in the automatic developing apparatus, it is difficult to reduce the size of the automatic developing apparatus.
(6) When liquid replenishment solution is stored for a long period of time, components in the solution deteriorate.
(7) Because plastic resin bottles are used for the liquid, they contribute to environmental pollution when they are discarded.
In order to solve the problems of liquid processing agents, Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection Nos. 119454/1993 and 188533/1993 disclose methods by which a solid processing agent is directly charged into the processing tank. However, even when the above technique is applied, it is difficult to stably and accurately replenish a predetermined amount of the solid processing agent.
In the case where a predetermined amount of granular, powdery or pellet-shaped solid processing agent is measured and replenished, when errors are caused in the replenishment amount of solid processing agents, it is difficult to stably process photosensitive material. Accordingly, it is required to accurately replenish the solid processing agent.
Generally, when granular or powdery solid processing agents are measured at the time of replenishment, volumes are measured normally, and the replenishment apparatus is relatively inexpensive. However, in the case of solid processing agents for processing silver halide photographic photosensitive material, a method, in which components are divided into a plurality of parts, a plurality of types of granules, powders and pellets are prepared, and they are respectively supplied independently, because of the storage stability, is widely known (Japanese Utility Model Open to Public Inspection No. 179729/1989, and others). However, in this replenishment apparatus, a plurality of replenishment apparatus are necessary for each processing tank, and a supply control means is necessary for each replenishment apparatus. Accordingly, the mechanism becomes more complicated and expensive. Further, the automatic processing apparatus, in which the replenishment apparatus are included, becomes larger because the space for the replenishment apparatus is increased, which is a disadvantage of the above technology.
Accordingly, it is advantageous to prepare mixtures of a plurality of types of granular or powder and to measure and supply a predetermined amount of the mixtures from a mixture container. In this connection, when the above mixture is measured and supplied, the interaction occurs between granules themselves or powder themselves, and blocking easily occurs. Specifically, under highly humid circumstances as is common in the automatic developing apparatus, this phenomenon is emphasized and supply failures easily occur.
In order to avoid the above problems, there is a supply method, in which a predetermined amount of solid processing agents such as granules or powders are packed into a film sheet bag in order to prevent humidity. However, there are following problems. The bag can often not be accurately opened; remaining solid processing agents scatter in the bag; disposal of the used bag is problematic; and conveyance mechanisms, by which the bag is opened and conveyed, become complicated.